Customer Reviews

Pathfinder #11 Curse Of The Crimson Throne: Skeletons Of Scarwall (Pathfinder: Curse of the Crimson Throne)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm impressed by Paizo's Pathfinder - they've really found a large audience (those intrepid gamers who just won't let D&D 3.5 die) and supply them well with innovative products and gaming modules that aim to please - and, by and large, succeed at this aim. Pathfinder 7: Curse of the Crimson Throne Part 1 provides a well-balanced adventure for low-level players.

Here is the very basic plot: In the city of Korvosa the PCs, called together my a mysterious woman, band together to put a cruel Dickensian criminal out of business. Shortly thereafter, however, Korvosa's king dies and all of the city is thrown into chaso. The PCs, enlisted by the city guard, begin to go on missions (everything from battles at a sinister butcher shop to dealing with a wily crimelord) for the good of their city, but there is treachery afoot...

The Good: This adventure will take PCs from 1st to 3rd level, and give them a good run for their money. There are ample mysteries to solve, a nice number of roleplaying encounters, good battles, and a well-thought-out dungeon crawl - overall, this adventure has a little bit of everything. Also, the production values of this book are fantastic, easily up to the usual Paizo Pathfinder standard: glossy pages, nice full-color art, easy-to-read stat blocks, and an intuitively laid-out adventure format. There is also a bonus besitary, an article on Varisian culture, and 4 pre-made PCs included, if your players want to get started right away. There is also an article on Harrowing, a vital part of this adventure, about which more later.

The Bad: Not much, actually. DMs should be aware that you will need the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: The Pathfinder Bestiary (in addition, of course, to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook), although, in a pinch, a 3.5 Monster Manual and PHB/DMG will work. I would have preferred to have all of the creatures in this adventure statted out for me to reduce the number of books I'll need to have open running this, but oh well. One pet peeve - there are a number of typos in this book (misspelled words, nonsensical sentences, etc.) but nothing too major. Also, I found some of the encounters a little overly complicated (especially the on-ship battle in Old Korvosa), but a good DM can probably ease up on this.

Now to Harrowing: Harrow is the Pathfinder version of Tarot Cards and Harrow readings in Curse of the Crimson Throne occur throughout all parts of the adventure path. Harrow readings activate a Pathfinder rules mechanic similar to Action Points in Eberron, and so are fairly important. This adventure has an article about how to do Harrow readings if you don't have a Harrow Divination Deck (Pathfinder Chronicles) (you can do them with a deck of regular playing cards or even dice); you may want to get the actual Harrow Deck itself, as its kind of fun and kooky and will add nice flavor to the adventure. DMs with extra cash may also want to get the Curse of the Crimson Throne-flavored Gamemastery Item Cards: Curse of the Crimson Throne, which contains items drawn according to this adventure's iconography (but without any stats, etc. - they're essentially generic equipment cards).

I rate this adventure pretty highly, and I can't wait to run it for my group.

Edge of Anarchy is a great adventure. It's for 1st level characters, and it provides a compelling and believable way to connect the new heroes. Basically, they've each been wronged by a local criminal, and his latest victim calls them together to seek justice. This adventure introduces the heroes to the city of Korvosa, which is the venue for the extended "adventure path" series called Curse of the Crimson Throne, which is very good overall. Great art and presentation throughout. Plus, this adventure introduces Harrow card readings, which are kinda like Tarot card readings, which give the heroes a little boost and are cool flavor-wise. The adventure is not terribly linear, and offers the GM and players a lot of opportunity to explore the city. If you really want to get into this adventure and the adventure path, Pathfinder's "Guide to Korvosa" is very helpful, but not necessary.

We are about 4 hours into this campaign. I love it so far. We are playing it with a DM playing the NPC as well. I love this campaign and can't wait to get into it more thoroughly. Lots of intrigue, murder, and really interesting twists and turns.

A great start to an even better adventure path. As with all pilots it's not perfect but it does a smashing good job at establishing a world o' much adventuring. It's very NPC oriented and right off the bat establishes friends you love and foes you love to hate. It's slightly darker than other modules I've DM'ed but these give some moral issues for the players to grapple with and really build the foundations for the city in chaos. While linear, the encounters and sections are varied with some awesomely conceived names.
Cons: Linear, about a million plugs for other products, and super long block-texts.

All in all the bee's knees and I can't wait to run #8, it sounds even better.

This is a review of the entire Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path. By and large Paizo has done a wonderful job of keeping D&D 3.5 alive. This series of interconnected adventures is part of that. I will not offer up any spoilers like some writers have done; however, I will say that the overall presentation of these adventures is top notch. The writing, art work, and plot all mesh well. The adventure is truly epic in both scope and tone. As a result I cannot wait to set the monsters within on my poor, unsuspecting Pathfinder campaign players. Note, however, that they were written during the 3.5 era - players of the Pathfinder Core Rules will have some minor tweaking to do to get the campaign up and running.

Overall, a great item. Buy this now!

I have been running one of D&D groups on paizo modules for over a year now and they have yet to disappoint. The art is great, the plot is pretty good for a published module. Each one gives some great monsters listed at the end of the book, as well as a ton of fluff to flesh out the region and people of the area.

This module is one of many products I can point to that demonstrate that Paizo has a better handle on the RP community than Wizards of the Coast. It is, to put it bluntly, a superior value for your money than similar products offered by Wizards of the Coast. This is really the key reason why many of us are migrating to Pathfinder products: they are a better value for your money.

One of the key strengths of this module is the volume of simple story hooks, characters and incidents. There's a lot of "stuff" in this module (it comes in at nearly 100 pages), and most of the "stuff" is directly playable. The material is also very dense, there isn't a half-page wasted on describing the dung on the floor, there is instead a half-page of an NPC's abilities, morale and motivation.

One of the other strengths of this module is almost every NPC and encounter (especially early in the adventure) can be overcome with some savvy rather than pure brawn. If you are a role player like I am, you can put your RP skills to good use in this module. If you like to negotiate a better deal, or rally other NPCs to your cause, or like to convert someone who has gone wayward back into the light, this module provides you PLENTY of opportunities to use your RP skills to gain XP or other rewards. I like that and I feel this kind of feature is too often ignored in other modules. You are free to just bash-and-grab too, but a little savvy and some clever RP can get you very far in this module.

There are flaws to the module too, let me highlight them and then move on to a more positive summary as a conclusion:

The first flaw is the gimmicky mini-game embedded in the story and module. The module features a very prominent Clairvoyant (who sets up the first plot hook and then becomes a recurring character). The chief way they "predict coming events", is via a card reading...which has custom rules and an entire section of the module to explain. This section is REALLY poorly written and the actual card reading mechanism is really cumbersome and not very intriguing at all. This is wasted paper on a really bad idea. The idea was that you'd like the mechanic so much you'd buy a custom deck to support it (although to be fair you can run it with a standard deck of playing cards too). The deck then also produces an "action point" mechanic, similar to the one you may have encountered if you ever had the misfortune of buying an Eberron product. The chief complaint is the writing of this section and the secondary complaint is the actual mechanics and design aren't that compelling. For me, I'm throwing away the entire section and just using regular Tarot cards (which are far more interesting, because of the fantastic imagery on the cards). I'll then developing a simple "action point" mechanism attached to the reading. Anyway, the entire section is cumbersome and really ruins the flow of the product, because the rest of the module is dense with action, story and characters, while this section is verbose and nerdy goes into too much detail about a side-game that isn't particularly useful or compelling.

The second flaw of the product is the editing, which at times is lacking. I guess Paizo cranks out such a high-volume of product and their products are often jam-packed with stuff, that editing precisely gets to be too much. Some sentences in the module are incomplete or even nonsensical. It doesn't happen often in the module (3 times I can see), but it really shouldn't ever happen in a professional product like this. This is a minor complaint, for the most part, the writing and editing is excellent.

The third flaw is some of the plot hooks are heavily borrowed and derivative. Sweeney Todd, Oliver Twist and Princess Bride are all heavily borrowed from in the plot hooks, but this I have to admit is pretty common to a lot of adventure modules, most of them borrow plot and theme from other sources. Also because it derivative it is easy to RP and visualize.

My last complaint is the module sometimes has confusing map layouts. In particular, there's a "fishery" in the module, that doesn't make complete structural sense and the way the levels connect to one another is not abundantly clear and not distinguished on the map at all. Also the module insists there are two creatures living in the water underneath the fishery, but never seem to offer why these two carnivores allow the other to coexist. I've reread this section again, and while I have an idea of the author's intent, I have to "guess" a little as to how the structure functions. For example, one of the NPCs "flees to the lower level" at a certain trigger, but I am not entirely sure how they do that easily (given one of the secret doors that allows that is allegedly unknown by anyone in the building).

Take all my nitpicks about the module's flaws with a grain of salt though. This is a superior product. In particular, because it is an introductory product (all characters start at level 1, which is my FAVORITE way to start a new campaign), it does a good job of keeping the difficulty both low yet challenging for those fragile early levels. It also has some compelling characters and stories, so your players are "drawn in" to the events that are plaguing the whole city immediately.

The module ends with a flourish that sets up the player's next adventure nicely and there's enough hooks, NPCs and locations laid out for you, that you could take the story in an entirely custom direction at the conclusion, (or simply buy the next module in the series). The module strikes a nice balance of ham bone and grit as well. It's not so "dark and droopy" that your players can't laugh or loosen up and have fun, nor is it so utterly cheesy and Monty Hall either, there's real danger in the adventure and there's some dark events and sinister locales throughout the adventure. So the tone of it is excellent. The monetary rewards for some of the adventures are far too high for my taste, but these are easily modified to suit your own style of campaign.

In summary, if you are looking for a clever, intriguing starting adventure for your players that has a great plot, fun characters and some seedy locales and some interesting missions, this is the module for you. It's jam-packed with a fresh set of new monsters (fully detailed), a fresh set of NPCs and plot advancements that are not only intriguing, but flexible enough you can bend them around should your players take a "road less traveled" with some of the events. It also features the option of resolving some of the encounters with wit, intelligence and RP, which is not only rare, it also heightens the value of the adventure.